Why Melee will always suck

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VictorDoom wrote:

The reason melee sucks is because monsters in the endgame maps, bosses mostly, just do too much damage for a melee to handle properly, unless he has kaoms, even with kaoms you can still die pretty easy at a map boss like vaal.

they need to just nerf the damage on bosses in 70+ maps already,and also lightning thorns needs a damn nerf too.

Describe the situation please correctly. Which attacks do you mean. I imply you mean hammer blow from vaal. If you think you should be able to tank this, well you have a fucked up sense of gaming mechanics.

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Spysong192 wrote:

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VictorDoom wrote:

The reason melee sucks is because monsters in the endgame maps, bosses mostly, just do too much damage for a melee to handle properly, unless he has kaoms, even with kaoms you can still die pretty easy at a map boss like vaal.

they need to just nerf the damage on bosses in 70+ maps already,and also lightning thorns needs a damn nerf too.

Describe the situation please correctly. Which attacks do you mean. I imply you mean hammer blow from vaal. If you think you should be able to tank this, well you have a fucked up sense of gaming mechanics.

ohohoo someone is a bit touchy, calm down tough guy

No mate i mean the laser attack from vaal for example, the lightning storm from piety, the LS from loathe,firestorm from gravicus every one of these attacks do massive damage with capped resistances, laser takes like 2-3k, i do confess the maps i do are pretty hard modded, curses added damage etc. but they still are very hard for a melee to do, i have to get in there and survive a few hits and then run back to regenerate my health, rince, repeat, its a real blasted struggle compared to how bosses in maps were in closed beta.

A ranged char now doesnt have to risk getting hit by this mobs, a melee does, thats why melee is harder, bosses and some mobs in high maps do way too much damage, ive had friends who got their kaoms and just gave up on melee even after having a 8k life pool and just went ranged cause you can still die from a few hits as a melee with a massive health pool.

and yeah if you are curious about tanking the vaal smash i did manage that in CB, took around 8k ES from the 10k pool of my shadow, so you can tank it, i heard you can block with spellblock also.

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VictorDoom wrote:

Spoiler

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Spysong192 wrote:

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VictorDoom wrote:

The reason melee sucks is because monsters in the endgame maps, bosses mostly, just do too much damage for a melee to handle properly, unless he has kaoms, even with kaoms you can still die pretty easy at a map boss like vaal.

they need to just nerf the damage on bosses in 70+ maps already,and also lightning thorns needs a damn nerf too.

Describe the situation please correctly. Which attacks do you mean. I imply you mean hammer blow from vaal. If you think you should be able to tank this, well you have a fucked up sense of gaming mechanics.

ohohoo someone is a bit touchy, calm down tough guy

No mate i mean the laser attack from vaal for example, the lightning storm from piety, the LS from loathe,firestorm from gravicus every one of these attacks do massive damage with capped resistances, laser takes like 2-3k, i do confess the maps i do are pretty hard modded, curses added damage etc. but they still are very hard for a melee to do, i have to get in there and survive a few hits and then run back to regenerate my health, rince, repeat, its a real blasted struggle compared to how bosses in maps were in closed beta.

and yeah if you are curious about tanking the vaal smash i did manage that in CB, took around 8k ES from the 10k pool of my shadow, so you can tank it, i heard you can block with spellblock also.

You get me wrong. ;) In some cases i have the very same opinion. Like the storms, rocks from vaal. Everything you aren´t able to dodge with skill or because the cast is instant without warning. The laser from vaal for example i don´t have a problem with if it does big damage while i think it shouldn´t one shot in first instance.

edit: I think we have the same opinion. One of the problems with melee is that in many cases you aren´t able to dodge damage with micro. You need to facetank it, cross fingers while pressing 1-5.

edit: and i mean "real" melee - leap slam + groundslam f.ex. is in my eyes not really a facetanker but a jumping frog with a pump action.

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Spysong192 wrote:

You get me wrong. ;) In some cases i have the very same opinion. Like the storms, rocks from vaal. Everything you aren´t able to dodge with skill or because the cast is instant without warning. The laser from vaal for example i don´t have a problem with if it does big damage while i think it shouldn´t one shot in first instance.

edit: I think we have the same opinion. One of the problems with melee is that in many cases you aren´t able to dodge damage with micro. You need to facetank it, cross fingers while pressing 1-5.

edit: and i mean "real" melee - leap slam + groundslam f.ex. is in my eyes not really a facetanker but a jumping frog with a pump action.

i use cleave with concentrated effect for example, the only thing keeping me alive and at full health is my life leech gem, and of course instant flasks saved my ass a few times when fighting bosses, but its just pretty ridiculous that there are attacks that kill you in under 1 second without warning in some modded maps.

i understand the concept of difficulty and i like it, but getting raped by pietys lightning storm when at 4.5k full life in 1 second without warning is just over the top, i want to do maps with ele weakness, - rez, extra damage etc. for the drops, but they should be possible to do with a non ranged char for gods sake i was lucky i had 2 rangers with me that solved the problem by just staying a mile away and attacking.

How about adding defensive things to melee damage nodes? Right now there are plenty of melee damage nodes, 1 handed melee weapon physical damage nodes, 2 handed, specific melee weapon nodes, etc etc. These are all pretty pointless for ranged characters, so if some of these nodes are modified to also give some defensive bonus then that could help improve melee, without buffing ranged. The first melee node at the Duelist already does exactly this.

In some game, Melees classes receive some kind of buff to balance the fact that they have to deal their damage at close range and thus are more vulnerable to being hit. For example, in Diablo 3, the Barbarian and the Monk both take 30% less damage from any source.

In Path of Exile, since all classes basically have access to all the same skills and passives, you can't really do that. However, PoE developpers implemented different solutions to help melee types :

- Melee weapons deal higher damage than range weapons. For example, the highest base physical dps a Claw can do is 67 while its only 44 for the highest Wand.

- Strenght, in addition to increase Life, also boost melee physical damage, but not range physical damage.

- There are 2 support gems that directly increase melee physical damage : Melee physical damage + Melee physical damage at full life. There are no equivalent for range physical damage.

- Typically, melee skills cost less mana than range skills. Notable exception : Burning Arrow.

Theorically, those solutions allows the melee characters to invest more passives points in defense nods (armor, evasion, life, shield block, etc.) while still being able to deal the same or more dps than the ranged characters that invested more points in Mana, mana regen passives and dps nods.

However, in practice, ranged characters are still stronger than melee characters. In addition to being able to invest much more points in dps passives than their counterparts, the ranged characters have access to support gems like LMP, GMP, Chain, Fork that let them deal massive area damage. Melee characters dont really have anything that compare to these support gems. In addition, despite pouring all their passives in defensive nods, melee types are still usually more vulnerable than range because of the insane damage they have to deal with at close range.

That doesn't mean that melee will always suck though. There are some solutions :

1 : Add a defense passive bonus to melee weapons. It could be something like +3% damage reduction (all types of damage) for 1h weapons and shields and +5% damage reduction to 2h melee weapons.

2 : Add support gems for melee skill that adds area of effect damage.

Example: Splash damage. Enemies near the targeted enemy are splashed by secondary damage (x% of main target damage).. Mana modifier : 1XX%

Not sure if its been posted yet.

Ranged weapons just need to do lower damage overall. As they are right now, bows just do too much damage overall.

This is how every game I've ever played that has bows balanced it out. Wands are actually setup really well damage wise, bows should be similar to wands.

This indirectly buffs melee, and allows them to de buff monsters a little.

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Jackel6672 wrote:

Not sure if its been posted yet.

Ranged weapons just need to do lower damage overall. As they are right now, bows just do too much damage overall.

This is how every game I've ever played that has bows balanced it out. Wands are actually setup really well damage wise, bows should be similar to wands.

This indirectly buffs melee, and allows them to de buff monsters a little.

Bow damage is not the problem.

Monster damage is the problem, thats why melee is hard, monsters do too much damage especially map bosses, its ridiculous, thats why people go ranged so its easier to avoid getting hit by them.

Melee Weapon Elemental Damage
There's no reason for that support to be both usable by melee and ranged while you can't benefit from physical damage as a ranged character
Values could be toned down too

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Pam wrote:

Melee Weapon Elemental Damage
There's no reason for that support to be both usable by melee and ranged while you can't benefit from physical damage as a ranged character
Values could be toned down too

What? Melee Weapon Elemental Damage? That is not a real gem, and how why would you not benefit from physical damage as a ranged character? Sorry but your post is very confusing.